


Solace

by Gwendelan



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Developing Friendships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 05:58:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12881616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gwendelan/pseuds/Gwendelan
Summary: In the aftermath of Jean's death, Scott's not dealing so well.And Logan made a promise.





	Solace

**Author's Note:**

> First work in this fandom, and with this pairing. I hope I can get their dynamic right. Wrote this in a single afternoon and didn't proof-read it, plus I'm not a native speaker, so please tell me if there are any mistakes.
> 
> Comments and kudos are love!

Five days since they lost Jean to the thundering waters below a broken dam. Five days since Scott collapsed against Logan's chest, heart-wrenching wails and half-articulate denials falling from his lips in between sobs and gasps for sour air.

Five days since he barricaded himself in his room, not coming out for food, not answering to any of their timid calls.

They mostly chose to let him be, assuming he found solace in solitude, surrounded by memories of Jean and their long years shared underneath the same roof. The Professor had advised to give him privacy, to tend to their own wounds and slowly rebuild themselves around their shared grief.

Wolverine tended not to react too well to orders he disagreed with. He had known grief, time and time again, like an old mistress ; knew too well how debilitating it could be, how easy it was to veer from giving oneself time to heal to simply surrendering to self-destructing urges and wallowing in the pain and despair of having hit rock bottom. There were people here who needed him, students and X-men alike, and while Cyclops had every right to be mourning the death of his beloved, he would have to pick himself up at some point, get back on his feet and face his responsibilities. Cutting everyone off and starving himself to death definitely sounded like the younger was steering onto the wrong path.

So on the sixth day of the self-imposed confinement, of worried frowns and pinched lips from every one of the house inhabitants, Logan broke. Ignoring the warning looks and half-uttered concerns about Scott not being ready to face the world, he strode down the corridor to their field leader's door and waited barely a handful of seconds after his knock went unanswered before he kicked the lock in.

The room was dark and unkempt, empty bottles lying around the floor, the air stale with sweat and grief. Cyclops was sitting hunched on the carpet against the foot of the bed, hair in a wild disarray, several days of stubble spouting in patches around his face, breath rank with alcohol, skin marred with dried tear tracks. He apparently hadn't bothered to change out of the clothes he was wearing on the day of Jean's death and Wolverine could smell old dried blood from the events that had unfolded in Alkali Lake facility, could see the urine stain on his crotch from where he had surely pissed himself in a drunken stupor.

He was a terrifying mess.

"Go away, Logan." He rasped, too weak to even turn his head around to his unexpected and unwanted guest.

"Fat chance, Summers. Every one else might be tiptoeing around the issue but I'm not about to let you wither away and die on my watch."

He closed the door as well as he could with the bent lock and crossed the room to crouch in front of the grieving X-man. He ostentatiously sniffed the air, grimaced at the stench of cheap whisky and urine and days-old unwashed body odor, frowned at the deep bruises peeking below the young man's visor.

"You reek, One-eye. You need a shower and a change of clothes. Some food and sleep would probably do you some good, too."

"Fuck you." He spat, but there was no strength behind the words. All sense of fight had been wiped with the crippling loss of the woman who had made him into who he was.

"Yeah, like I haven't heard that one before. Come on, stop lazing around and get up off your ass, there are people who need you."

"Is my pain such a joke to you?" Scott snarled. "Have you no respect at all? I'm… She's gone. I didn't stop her and now she's gone and you think this is funny? You're, what, entertaining yourself, seeing how miserable you can make me by reminding me that I failed her, that she had to sacrifice herself because I was the one to endanger us all? Well fuck you, asshole. What if I die, huh? Maybe I deserve it. Just leave me alone, go pick a fight with someone who cares. I'm done."

Logan almost snarled at the venom dripping from the words, almost punched him through the wooden frame of the bed. He then realized the kid would not fight back if he did, because the hatred Scott was spewing was directed mostly at himself.

He had expected pain, anger even, had primed himself for a fight. He hadn't expected guilt.

"This is not me joking around, you idiot. This is me _caring_. You couldn't have done anything to save her, Scott, and you're the only one around here who's blaming you."

The anguished chortle of incredulity tore at the Wolverine's chest, and his hand shot out to grip the young man's shoulder.

"Scott. It's not your fault." He stressed, giving the X-man a strong shake.

"Right."

"It's not. The dam collapsing was Striker's fault for trying to control you. Jean chose to save us and there was nothing any of us could have done to stop her."

"Stop staying that!" Scott screamed, hands going to his ears like he couldn't bear the truth of it, the inevitability of her death.

"It's _not your fault_ , Cyke, you gotta stop doing this to yourself."

Scott wailed as tears cascaded down his cheeks, started tearing at his hair and scratching his skin raw, until a burst of desperate energy propelled him against Logan's sturdy chest. Suddenly the older man had a lapful of trembling body, fists gripping frantically at his shirt and a head colliding repeatedly with his adamantium-enhanced collarbone, and his arms reflexively went around Cyclops's heaving torso, one hand going to cup the younger's nape to stop him from hurting himself against his metal skeleton.

"Calm down, I gotcha. Scott, I gotcha."

Scott stopped fighting and let go, weeping freely against the naked skin of his neck, keening and whimpering with the terrible pain wrecking his insides, like Jean's absence was physically crushing his lungs and tearing away his heart.

Wolverine had come in expecting a fight, or at the very least some ass-kicking to get Cyclops to his feet. He hadn't counted on their leader finding a safe place in his arms like their usual rivalry had been the catalyst to a begrudging trust, clinging onto him like he had only just realized that he didn't have to face the storm alone.

Both men's faces were damp when Scott's breath finally stopped its erratic heaving and he fell into a doze. Logan let him rest for a few minutes, mindlessly drying his own face on a sleeve before begrudgingly shaking him awake, because while the kid blatantly needed sleep, he had already lost several pounds, his blood was probably more alcohol than water at this point, and if he delayed a shower any longer his clothes would start crawling on their own.

"Scott, come on. Shower, food, then sleep, 'kay?"

The X-man sighed but nodded feebly and Wolverine hauled him up to his feet, catching him around the waist at the last moment when his knees buckled under his weight and his temple missed the corner of the bed by a mere inch.

"Damnit, Cyke, you really need to stop trying to kill yourself." He grumbled, pulling the younger man into the en-suite bathroom and depositing him on the closed toilet, eyeing him critically.

"Think you can undress on your own?"

Cyclops shrugged, brought trembling hands up to his torso to start working on his shirt. Logan watched him struggle with clumsy fingers before he batted his hands away and made quick work of the remaining buttons, then kneeled to get rid of the boots and socks and unceremoniously yanked both jeans and underwear down his legs. Scott looked too shaken and exhausted to be self-conscious and simply let himself be stripped naked until the older man could push him underneath the warm spray of the shower.

"'m hoping you can handle things from here because I'm definitely not lathering you up. I'm gonna get you something to eat, yeah? You better be clean and dressed when I come back."

He briefly checked that the younger was standing upright and following instructions before he made his way out, picking up the discarded clothes and turning up his nose at the absolute foul smell wafting up from the ruined fabric, dismissing them as a lost cause and dumping everything in the garbage bin. He did the same with the empty bottles, then aired out the room, but the rest of the mess would have to be dealt with at a later point because he wasn't Scott's goddamn maid and the kid could clean up after himself when he got out of his funk.

He left the room, almost collided with Storm who was obviously headed to meet them.

"Logan. You've been gone for a long time, I was starting to worry. How is he?"

Wolverine shrugged.

"Not good. Pretty sure he spent the last couple days drinking himself into oblivion. I managed to get him into the shower, was about to get him some dinner and a couple bottles of water."

Her face twisted up in clear concern.

"What can I do?"

"At the moment, nothing much. He needs to eat then sleep for about a week. But this privacy bullshit has to stop. Pretty sure he'll be desperate for company when he's rested, even if he doesn't want anyone to see him like this."

She bit her lip.

"We thought…"

"I know what you thought. And while that was very considerate, he'll do something stupid if we leave him alone, and I'm not gonna let that happen."

He gave her a wry smile.

"Won't be easy. He's hurting and he's lost and he's like a frightened deer, won't let anyone too close."

"Do you think I should go see him then?"

"Not right this second, he's naked and hopefully still in the shower. Later, when he wakes, maybe."

She nodded her approval.

"Thank you, Logan. For doing this. I know you and him weren't always on the best of terms."

His face clouded with grief.

"Yeah, well. I made a promise to Jean. To take care of him." He cleared his throat. "So I will."

They parted ways, Storm to her own room, Logan to the kitchens where he stacked two plates with all the food he could lay his hands on, hoping some of it would appeal to their recently widowed X-man. When he found his way back into the quarters Scott and Jean had shared for so many years, he found his senses assaulted with the memory scent of her, still imprinted in the sheets, her perfume still deeply engrained in the room now that the stench had been aired out. Scott was dressed in sweatpants and a loose T-shirt, unruly wet bangs framing hollowed cheeks and sunken eyes, having obviously not bothered to shave the patchy beginnings of a beard. He was sitting curled up against the headboard of their bed, but this time Logan's footsteps into the room were enough to make him resurface from his introspection and his spectacled stare met Wolverine's somewhat satisfied one.

"Feel any better? You definitely _smell_ better at least."

Scott's gaze dropped back to his feet.

"Not sure I'll ever be able to feel better." He admitted softly. "People say when you lose someone, you feel like there's a hole in your chest. That's bullshit. I feel like _everything_ 's gone. She was my whole life and now there's nothing left."

Logan was horrified to see tears shining anew on his cheeks, didn't know if his own frailed nerves could take another crying fit. But Scott had seemingly gained back some control over himself because after only a couple seconds, he straightened back up, wiped his face angrily.

"Don't worry. I won't cry on your shoulder again. Twice was apparently the most you could give me and I appreciate it."

The older man deposited the food on the bedside table, gingerly sat himself on the other side of the bed.

"You can cry all you want, for all I care." Then, at the younger's hurt grimace, he chuckled in self-depreciation. "That came out wrong. I'm really bad at this." He sighed. "I meant that I don't mind. I can deal with you crying on my shoulder. But you're not the only one hurting, here, and I don't know how much help I'll be."

He could see a thousand automatic retorts warring in Cyclop's mind, but what finally made it out was surprisingly gentle, given the fact that before Jean's death, Logan had been actively warring with Scott for her attention, purposefully trying to drag her away.

"I know you had feelings for her. For what it's worth, I'm sorry." Scott said simply.

Logan swallowed harshly against the rising bile in his throat.

"What I said the other day, I meant that too. She picked you. She loved you. And you should cherish that memory."

He pressed his fingers into his eyes, wiped the few stray tears that had managed to escape, then pushed one of the plates at Scott.

"Eat what you want, I'll take whatever you don't." He ordered.

Neither of them had much appetite, it seemed, for they barely managed to finish one of the plates. But the younger was fading fast, so when it seemed that they could stomach no more and that the seldom words had completely died down, Logan insisted that he drain at least one of the water bottles, picked up the remains of their dinner and got up from the bed, squeezing the other's shoulder in a parting gesture.

"Try to sleep, 'kay? I'll come back in the morning with breakfast if you don't feel like facing everyone else yet."

Just before the door clicked shut, though, he couldn't help but notice the way Scott's entire body tensed up again when he caught the lasting whiff of Jean's perfume on their pillows.

He hoped sleep would find them both.

********

Logan had been sleeping fitfully when the sounds of furniture breaking and loud cursing had him scrambling out of bed and into the hallway, where students and professors alike were already gathering around the source of the ruckus, and his stomach sunk when he realized they were converging around Scott's room. 

"Let me through." He groaned, the crowd parting to let him pass until he could join Ororo on the threshold of the room where their fellow X-man was systematically smashing his way through every breakable item, shouts of rage interspersed with agonized yowls.

"I'll handle this." He said gruffly, pushing his way in. "Get the kids back to bed."

He waited for her acknowledgement before he shut the door on their friends, not wanting everyone to witness their leader's breakdown. He crossed the room in quick strides, careless of the debris cutting the soles of his feet, and grabbed the younger in a crushing hold right as he was about to send a chair through the glass frame of the bookshelf.

"Let me go." Scott cried, struggling against Wolverine's unrelenting embrace.

"Settle down." He growled against his ear. "You're scaring everyone. I don't want to hurt you but I will knock you out if you don't calm down."

The younger managed to twist around in his arms, kicking and flailing and trying to headbutt him but none of his attempts landed solidly enough to dislodge Logan's grip and the older man waited him out, repeating reassurances over and over and occasionally grunting in aggravation when the kid hit hard enough to hurt himself, but at some point Scott abruptly stopped fighting him, going lax against him and head dropping to his shoulder, silent tears dripping down to soak the hem of his sleeping shirt.

"She's gone." He choked out. "She's really gone, Logan."

"I know."

"I don't know how I'll… I feel like I'm falling the fuck apart."

"Well, this school is full of people who care about you, who will help you put your pieces back together. But you gotta let them, kid. Let _us_."

He swept his back in firm strokes until he could feel the last of the tension dissipate, leaving only exhaustion in its wake.

"Come on, let me take a look at your feet."

"My feet…?" Scott muttered in apparent confusion.

"You're bleeding all over the place, must have stepped on some shards." Logan informed, before bending down to grip him under the knees, carrying him down to the bathroom with hardly a token protest from the younger.

"I could have walked."

"And pushed it all deeper so I could spend the rest of the night digging it out from your soles? I don't think so."

He sat him down on the counter, rummaged in the sink cabinet for the first aid kit that was surely stashed there, unpacked a pair of tweezers, antiseptic wipes and a roll of bandages. Then, for lack of a stool, he picked up one of Scott's feet and deposited it on his bent knee.

"Hope you're not ticklish." He quipped, trying to dissipate the younger's unease, before working on dislodging the shards of glass and porcelain embedded in his skin.

After the mostly superficial wounds were tended to and Scott's feet were wrapped in gauze, Wolverine carried him out bridal-style and went to dump him on his bed, only to be almost choked by an alarmingly desperate hug.

"Not my bed."

"Come on Cyke, you need to sleep." Logan grumbled in exasperation.

"It smells like her and I can't take it."

The older paused, biting back any incisive retort. Scott was hurting, so badly that he couldn't function normally, barely ate, and likely couldn't sleep without being woken up by nightmares. Jean's death was only a week old. Insisting that he needed to let go completely of these last vestiges of her would obviously either be met with obstinate denial, or cause a rupture in the fragile trust they had managed to establish.

"Well I'm not letting you sleep on the communal couch." Wolverine said decisively. "Any other room available?"

"I don't know, I just – I can't stay here tonight."

Logan sighed in surrender.

"My room it is, then."

Scott insisted on walking the short distance to the older man's den, Logan compromised by wrapping an arm around his back to support most of his weight. After a brief check that everyone was indeed back in their beds, they shuffled awkwardly down the hall until they reached the room that had been Logan's for several months now, but was still completely devoid of any decoration, spartanly furnished and impersonal. Any other day, Scott would likely have made a quip about the minimalistic decor, joked about the unpacked duffle bag and Logan's inability to settle down. At this moment, though, he let himself collapse onto the unmade bed, forced himself to gripe about the sheets smelling of sweat because the unusual proximity was rocking their whole relationship and he direly needed some form of normalcy in the wrecked chaos of his life.

"Do you ever change the sheets?" He grumbled, mostly for show.

"It's either my bed or the floor, your pick. Prick." Logan answered readily.

The older man was already grabbing a couple of pillows and a blanket and arranging them on the floorboards, and Scott watched him guiltily.

"I didn't mean to kick you out of your own bed."

"Well, I don't intend to make you into a freaking shish kabob if I happen to have a nightmare, and you really need to sleep. I'll be fine."

He switched off the overhead light and gratefully collapsed on his pile of beddings, feeling the first dregs of slumber already pulling him down. After some restless shifting and the sound of his glasses tumbling on the bedside table, the younger seemed to settle down and Logan let himself drift, only to snap awake a moment later at the salty tang of tears in the air, the younger snuffling softly against the pillow.

"Fuck's sake. Do I really have to knock you out to get you to sleep?" He groaned.

"Sorry." Scott's voice was once again thick with emotion and Logan pressed the heel of his hands into his eyes until stars burst beneath his eyelids.

"That's not – You don't need to be sorry. I know what you're going through. I just really don't know what would help you, Cyke. You need to talk to me."

There was a pregnant pause, that lasted long enough for Logan to stop expecting an answer. Then there was a hand groping in the dark, pushing away the threadbare blanket covering his body then fisting in his shirt, and he let himself be pulled up into the bed, bewildered but willing to try anything if it got the kid to _go to sleep_.

"Don't make me ask for it." Scott pleaded once the older man was more or less lying next to him, only partially under the covers and with only one pillow between them, and Logan completely disregarded the plea because the situation undeniably required some clarification.

"What, Scott? You want to cuddle?"

He couldn't see the blush rising to Cyclop's cheeks, but he could certainly imagine it.

"It seems the only time I actually almost managed to fall asleep today was when you were holding me. I'm putting that theory to the test."

In the dark, Wolverine chuckled at the surreality of it all.

"Yeah, you want to cuddle. With me. Fine, then, let's do this."

He retrieved his pillow from the floor, untangled himself from the sheets and quilts until he was properly settled, then waited for directions. When none seemed forthcoming, he slowly edged closer to Scott until he was plastered to his back with an arm around his flat belly, and after a couple of minutes of regulated breathing he felt the younger slowly melt against him and fingers tentatively tangle with his over a hair-dusted chest.

"Thank you for doing this." Scott whispered in the dark. "Apparently I can't sleep on my own any more."

"Well, let's hope it works, or I'm gonna have to ball-gag you." Logan grumbled. "If I have a nightmare, wake me up from the other side of the room, okay? Try not to fry me with your laser beam and I'll try not to skewer you with my claws."

"Deal."

"Night, kid."

"Good night."


End file.
